Berlin-based language learning service Babbel was supposed to IPO on the Frankfurt stock exchange in late September. But only a few days before the initial listing the company pulled the plug with an eye on the developing Evergrande debt crisis that made the global stock markets very nervous. It has yet to announce a new
Calibrate Ventures, a four-year-old early-stage venture capital firm backing startups leveraging artificial intelligence and automation, debuted its second fund, a $97 million vehicle that is about 25% higher than its previous fund. With Calibrate Fund II, the firm has $175 million in assets under management, co-founder and managing partner Jason Schoettler told TechCrunch. The firm
South Korean chipmaker SK Hynix said on Wednesday it has received merger clearance from the Chinese antitrust authority for its $9 billion acquisition of Intel Corp’s NAND and SSD (solid-state drive) business, clearing the final hurdle to completion of securing regulatory approval in eight jurisdictions. Last October, the U.S. chip giant and SK Hynix reached the
Some 55 billion parcels are shipped in bubble wrap every year. Plastic bubble wrap is reliant on fossil fuels and 98% of plastic packaging is single-use. You can imagine the adverse environmental impact of all this plastic. The founders of Woola were running an online e-commerce store and saw the packaging problem first-hand. The lack
Sophie Alcorn Contributor Sophie Alcorn is the founder of Alcorn Immigration Law in Silicon Valley and 2019 Global Law Experts Awards’ “Law Firm of the Year in California for Entrepreneur Immigration Services.” She connects people with the businesses and opportunities that expand their lives. More posts by this contributor Dear Sophie: How to maneuver the
Amazon is seeking Indian antitrust watchdog’s approval to buy Catamaran Ventures’ stake in Prione, which operates one of the largest sellers on the e-commerce platform, months after the two firms said they won’t renew their joint venture after May next year. The announcement comes as a surprise as Catamaran owns 76% stake in Prione. Amazon
Shravan Kumar Alavilli Contributor If human societies do nothing, in just a few decades, the planet could warm to levels it hasn’t reached in at least 34 million years, leading to more melting glaciers and floods than ever before — as well as the dire effect of urban heat waves. In 2021, in the U.S.
Ocurate, a startup using artificial intelligence to predict customer lifetime value for e-commerce businesses, took in an oversubscribed seed round of $3.5 million. Backers in the round include 8-Bit Capital, DCF Capital, Data Community Fund, AIX Ventures, Italmobiliare, Streamlined Ventures and some individual strategic angel investors like Adam Metzger and Mazen Al-Jubeir. Tobi Konitzer, founder
German on-demand delivery giant Delivery Hero is pulling its food delivery service out of Germany again. At the same time it has announced it will exit the Japanese market, by divesting Foodpanda Japan, starting in Q1 next year. In a statement accompanying the pre-Christmas exit news, the company’s CEO and co-founder, Niklas Östberg, said: “Scaling
As nostalgia goes, the Fisher-Price Chatter phone doesn’t disappoint. The classic retro kids toy was given a modern revamp for the holiday season with the new release for adults which, unlike the original toy designed for kids, can make and receive calls over Bluetooth using a nearby smartphone. The Chatter — despite a working rotary
Apple is breaking with holiday tradition: The company announced early last month that its App Store will continue to review developer submissions over the holidays, welcome news for app developers facing their busiest season. Previously, an app that needed to release a bug fix or a critical update on Black Friday or during the final
Jamie Viggiano Contributor Jamie Viggiano is the chief marketing officer at Fuel Capital, an early-stage venture capital firm investing in consumer, SaaS and infrastructure businesses. More posts by this contributor Create target customer personas to develop successful growth strategies Start building your brand book with a visioning workshop It’s human nature to reflexively categorize and
Serial fintech entrepreneur Walter Cruttenden founded Acorns with his son, Jeff, in 2012 with the goal of helping low- and middle-income households to invest and save responsibly. The pair wanted to simplify investing for the millions that have trouble getting started or continuing to invest. Then in 2018, Walter went live with a new company
Short video app Triller is set to go public via a reverse merger with video-tech company SeaChange International, the two companies announced on Wednesday. The combined entity will be valued at approximately $5 billion. The boards of both companies have approved the proposed merger and the deal is expected to close in the first quarter
Taking notes during a meeting is an art form, requiring multitasking skills for listening, typing and coming up with intelligent things to say while you do the other two. Not to mention the three or four different applications we use to prepare, run and follow-through with meetings. Avoma thinks we are doing too much and
Enterprise software giant Sage has acquired the remaining stake in Brightpearl, originally a UK-based startup in cloud retail management, for $340m. Brightpearl provides a SaaS-based retail operating system, enabling real-time business insights. Sage previously owned 17% of the Bristol, UK-based startup, which MMC Ventures, a UK Series A investor, backed in 2014. The startup had
Ampla Technologies, a startup which provides financing to small-to-medium sized consumer-facing businesses, announced today it has raised $40 million in a Series A round of funding co-led by VMG Partners and Forerunner Ventures. Existing backer Core Innovation Capital also put money in the round. In conjunction with the equity investment, Ampla has also secured $250
European startup and venture capital data company Dealroom has raised a €6 million Series A, it told TechCrunch. The company’s new capital comes nearly two years after it raised €2.75 million in early 2020. Its database competes with a number of rivals in North America, including PitchBook, CB Insights, and my former employer Crunchbase. Beringea
When it comes to engineering talent in the world of tech, demand continues to outpace supply, a predicament so acute that by 2030, that disparity will balloon to 85 million positions being unfilled, according to research from Korn Ferry. Today, a startup that believes it can stem that tide with a more inclusive, global approach
Fintech startup LiveFlow has raised a $3.5M Seed round which was led by Moonfire Ventures with backing from Y Combinator, Seedcamp and WndrCo. Also participating was Victor Jacobsson, co-founder of Klarna; Bradley Horowitz, former VP Product at Google; Oliver Jung, former VP International Expansion at AirBnB, Phillip Chambers, Peakon founder & CEO, and others. LiveFlow
With traction metrics that would make any startup CFO foam at the mouth, TikTok influencer marketing platform Ubiquitous is making a big splash in the chaotic market of influencer marketing. It’s one of the fastest-growing segments of advertising and marketing, but one that brings some unique challenges; working with influencers directly is labor-intensive, but results
With everything that has gone down at Better.com over the past 18 months, many of us are scratching our heads in wonder that CEO Vishal Garg remains employed. On December 10, employees of the digital mortgage lender were notified via email by the Better board of directors that Garg would be taking time off, effective
Creator monetization startups are cropping up left and right as the tech world embraces the fast-growing creator economy. But Patreon, founded in 2013, has been around since before words like “influencer” were in our vocabulary — back when “Tik Tok” was a Kesha song, rather than the social platform that everyone is trying to emulate.
Veho, a startup applying technology to next-day package delivery, aims to solve the last mile of delivery — how packages get from fulfillment centers to the customer’s door. It also wants to do it with a unique flair: providing transparency into deliveries that starts with the option of when, where and how customers want their
The European Union’s competition regulator has given the all-clear to Microsoft’s $19.7 billion purchase of transcription tech firm Nuance, which was announced earlier this year. The EU said today it has concluded there are no competition concerns for the region if the acquisition goes ahead, clearing it without conditions. The deal was notified to the
Last year’s Essential implosion marked one of the most high-profile consumer electronics startup failures in recent memory. Launched in 2017 with $330 million, a killer pedigree and some truly grand ambitions, the company sputtered through a combination of industry issues, disappointment and troubling allegations against founder Andy Rubin. The firm’s IP was eventually purchased by
Jamie Viggiano Contributor Jamie Viggiano is the chief marketing officer at Fuel Capital, an early-stage venture capital firm investing in consumer, SaaS and infrastructure businesses. More posts by this contributor 5 questions startups should consider before making their first marketing hire To create successful growth strategies, relevant marketing campaigns and products that deliver real value
It’s my last day of work for the year, so we’re going to have some fun. Obviously, we’re talking crypto this morning. Jack Dorsey, former Twitter CEO and present CEO of Block, the company formerly known as Square, stirred the crypto pot recently, making explicit his preferences in the larger blockchain landscape by taking swipes
Supernova is a new app that has now gone live on the Apple and Android app stores billing itself as a new “ethical alternative” to Instagram and Facebook, where most of the ad revenues go to charities. Does it have a chance? It would be fair to say that after many years of either watching
In the U.S., around 13% of greenhouse gases are spewed out of commercial and residential buildings. You’d be forgiven for scratching your head and asking why. If you tour a typical New York building, you’ll often find that the tech that runs deep in the underbellies of the brick-clad behemoths looks like the 1960s and